Operationalism is the view that the meaning of scientific concepts is to be given in terms of the operations which govern the application of such concepts. The principal advocate of operationalism was the Nobel-prize winning physicist Percy Bridgman (1882-1961) who developed the approach primarily with respect to physical concepts, such as length, space and time. Outside physics, operationalism had some influence in the development of behavioural psychology. With its emphasis on the operations employed in the application of a concept, operationalism resembles the logical positivist's verificationist view of meaning, though it focuses on the meaning of individual words rather than sentences. Now widely rejected, one of the main problems with operationalism is that the use of different operations for measuring the same magnitude generates different concepts, so that no unified concept of a magnitude exists if multiple means of measuring the magnitude exist.

Operational definitions were a neo-Machean development that connected with the positivism of Logical Positivism. Logical Positivism failed, with the failure of operational definitions being just one of multiple and multifarious failures of Logical Positivism more broadly. Operationalism, however, has continued to seduce psychology more than half a century after it was repudiated by philosophers of science, including the very Logical Positivists who had first taken it seriously. It carries with it a presupposed metaphysics that is false in virtually all of (...) its particulars, and thereby distorts and obscures genuine issues concerning the nature of theory and of science. It makes it particularly difficult for psychologists, under the thrall of this dogma, to free themselves from these false presuppositions, and to think about, create, and critique genuine scientific theory and process. That is the tragedy of operationalism. (shrink)

This paper explores some lines of argument in wittgenstein's post-Tractatus writings in order to indicate the relations between wittgenstein's philosophical psychology, On the one hand, And his philosophy of language, His epistemology, And his doctrines about the nature of philosophical analysis on the other. The authors maintain that the later writings of wittgenstein express a coherent doctrine in which an operationalistic analysis of confirmation and language supports a philosophical psychology of a type the authors call "logical behaviorism." they also maintain (...) that there are good grounds for rejecting the philosophical theory implicit in wittgenstein's later works. In particular, They first argue that wittgenstein's position leads to some implausible conclusions concerning the nature of language and psychology; second, They maintain that the arguments wittgenstein provides are inconclusive; and third, They sketch an alternative position which they believe avoids many of the difficulties implicit in wittgenstein's philosophy. (shrink)

In "human beings", "studies in the philosophy of wittgenstein" (ed. By p winch), J cook presents a radical solution to the problem of other minds and then suggests that this treatment of the problem is to be found in the writings of wittgenstein. According to cook's interpretation, Wittgenstein's analysis of the problem does not involve in any essential way any special doctrines about criteria, Nor does it commit him to any form of behaviorism. In the course of arguing these theses, (...) Cook raises a number of objections to an earlier paper I wrote with j fodor entitled "operationalism and ordinary language: a critique of wittgenstein", "american philosophical quarterly". In the present paper, I respond to cook's article by arguing that his solution to the problem of other minds is defective, By pointing out that some of his objections are based on misreadings of our paper, And by showing how the bulk of his objections are supported by confused arguments and implausible interpretations of wittgenstein's writings. (shrink)

In the foundations of quantum mechanics Gleason’s theorem dictates the uniqueness of the state transition probability via the inner product of the corresponding state vectors in Hilbert space, independent of which measurement context induces this transition. We argue that the state transition probability should not be regarded as a secondary concept which can be derived from the structure on the set of states and properties, but instead should be regarded as a primitive concept for which measurement context is crucial. Accordingly, (...) we adopt an operational approach to quantum mechanics in which a physical entity is defined by the structure of its set of states, set of properties and the possible (measurement) contexts which can be applied to this entity. We put forward some elementary definitions to derive an operational theory from this State–COntext–Property (SCOP) formalism. We show that if the SCOP satisfies a Gleason-like condition, namely that the state transition probability is independent of which measurement context induces the change of state, then the lattice of properties is orthocomplemented, which is one of the ‘quantum axioms’ used in the Piron–Solèr representation theorem for quantum systems. In this sense we obtain a possible physical meaning for the orthocomplementation widely used in quantum structures. (shrink)

This paper investigates the kind of empiricism combined with an operationalist perspective that, in the first decades of our Century, gave rise to a turning point in theoretical physics and in probability theory. While quantum mechanics was taking shape, the classical (Laplacian) interpretation of probability gave way to two divergent perspectives: frequentism and subjectivism. Frequentism gained wide acceptance among theoretical physicists. Subjectivism, on the other hand, was never held to be a serious candidate for application to physical theories, despite the (...) fact that its philosophical back-ground strongly resembles that underlying quantum mechanics, at least according to the Copenhagen interpretation. The reasons for this are explored. (shrink)

A method is proposed that should facilitate the construction of theories of “submicroscopic particles” (denoted as “theories of microchannels”) in a way similar to the use of group-theoretical methods. The “conceptual analysis” (CA) method is based on the analysis of the basic concepts of a theory; it permits a determination of necessary conditions imposed on the mathematical apparatus (of the theory) which then appear as a mathematical representation of the structures obtained in a formal scheme of a theory. A pertinent (...) conceptual analysis leads to a new definition (“relativization”) of the concept “empirical implication.” The approach may be characterized as “realistic” and “operational.” The application of the CA method is illustrated on the example of quantum theory. In Part I the algebraic structure of a partially ordered, up-ward directed, bounded set is deduced from the rudimentary concepts. In Parts II and III, we shall deduce the Hilbert-space structure (well established in quantum mechanics) from postulates on some essential idealizations accepted in the theory. Whereas Part II is concerned with the idealizations of existing quantum theories based on the Hilbert-space formalism, Part I may be considered as a general basis for a wider class of theories. (shrink)

This article is dedicated to the philosophy ofscience which was developed by the outstanding Soviet physicist and leader of a powerful scientificcommunity, L. I. Mandelstam. It is shown that thisphilosophy can be summed up under the heading operationalism. A comparison with the paradigmaticoperationalism of Percy Bridgman is undertaken andthe German positivist roots of Mandelstam's philosophyare indicated. The final section reconstructs the principle ofexpedient idealization, the principle which was putforward by Mandelstam's disciples in the spirit of hisoperationalism to solve problems of (...) the theory ofnon-linear oscillations. (shrink)

Instrumentalism is an approach to science that treats a theory as a tool and only as a tool for computation; it dispenses with the concept of truth.Conventionalism treats a theory as true by convention if it forms a pattern of observations from which correct predictions can be made.Operationalism denies meaning to the concepts of a theory unless they can be defined operationally. It is argued in this paper that truth-value is indispensable to science, because a theory can be rejected only (...) if an empirical consequence is false and if falsity of a conclusion entails falsity of a premise. This undermines the above positions. The fourth interpretation isinduction. Induction, by contrast, uses the notion of truth-value. What is focused on here is its reliance on the ultimacy ofobservation. The present thesis is that instrumentalism, conventionalism, and induction are different attempts to handle observations. The common problem is the gap between data and theory.All these interpretations share a philosophy of observationalism. The aim of this paper is to show that the several orthodox interpretations of science all fail to solve the problem of the data-theory gap, and to show that they all presuppose a philosophy of observation. (shrink)